This invention relates to a notification device method and system, and more particularly to such a device, method and system capable of providing emergency notification using a standard telephone system.
In all but a few communities throughout North America, community officials rely on door-to-door notification when they have to alert people of emergency situations that demand their immediate attention and action. Generally, however, door-to-door notification is ineffective for a number of reasons. First, it requires a large allocation of human resources in order to reach the many hundreds of thousands of people that may be affected by an emergency situation. Further, the time to recruit and organize the human resources, the danger it may put those human resources in, and the growing distrust of people to strangers that approach their homes, especially at night, all combine to make door-to-door notification ineffective. Numerous news stories of people dying in their sleep from tornadoes, floods, etc., unaware that a dangerous situation existed, provide evidence of how ineffective prior emergency notification systems are and point up the need for an effective community emergency notification system.
In approximately three hundred North American communities, officials presently use a service based on a computerized phone system that calls and delivers a pre-recorded message to all numbers identified to the system provider for notification. The system provider, having secured a contract with a community or private company, has the community or private company provide them with a list of published telephone numbers and a geographic cross reference such as a postal code, or zip-code, so that the list may be narrowed to a specific geographic section of the community.
However, there are a number of problems with such a system. For example, the calls are placed from one or two U.S. locations with all calls having to pass through a local telephone switch. During an emergency, the local switch can be expected to be overloaded already, thereby limiting the probability of a notification call getting through. Additionally, the computerized phone system will send the emergency message as soon as the receiving telephone goes off-hook. Where a peripheral device, such as a common answering machine, is connected to the receiving telephone, the message may be delivered and completed in many instances prior to the answering machine entering into a record mode. In other words, the emergency message may be delivered while the answering machine greeting is being played. Moreover, even if the emergency message is fully recorded on an answering machine, there is no immediate notification of the seriousness of the emergency situation to persons returning to their homes or businesses.
Additionally, in such a system, since the database used by the computerized phone system does not include unlisted numbers, it is incomplete. Also, because of the large number of listing changes that occur daily, the database is typically out of date within a day of being issued and will not include any new listings. Therefore, not all people in an affected area will be notified of an emergency.
Further in using such a computerized phone system, when all the numbers provided have been called, a list of numbers not reached is provided to the municipal authorities for the purpose of door-to-door notification. This list of numbers will include all numbers deactivated since the database was issued, thereby wasting valuable resources sent to reach the people at the registered addresses, and possibly putting these people at risk.
Moreover, in such a system, the capacity of the system is limited by the number of telephone lines available for emergency message notification and by the duration of the emergency message. With a very large geographic area to be notified, or in the event of more than one emergency at a time, the service may not be able to provide the timely delivery of messages needed in response to the emergency situation, such as in the case of a tornado, which offers little time for a warning. Furthermore, in the event of such a rapidly occurring emergency such as a gas leak which is followed by a gas explosion and multi-building fire, becoming an evacuation order, by the time the last messages are being sent, the message may be obsolete and may itself pose a danger.
In such a computerized phone system, the costs include long distance telephone calls made during the emergency. Considering that an emergency may require a number of calls, the annual costs of the system are unpredictable and may exceed budgetary constraints.
Further, the best prior system is only able to provide a delivery rate of about 6,000 calls per hour.
In the case of Canada, the Canadian Government abandoned an attempt to provide emergency notification to all people within a designated area at all times of the day or night in the 1980""s because no economical or thorough means to do so could be found. A 1993 provincial and municipal survey suggests that the ability to reach people in the night is a top priority for an emergency broadcast system. However, with no practical means of doing so, the Canadian Government is now implementing a national broadcast system that does not include this ability. Additionally, the problem of effective community, or geographically specific, emergency notification appears to be a problem common to all NATO countries.
Sirens, the preferred method of war-time warnings, continue to be used in some communities. However, because of the high cost of maintenance and the large number of sirens required to reach growing urban populations, sirens are being used less often. Further, the public has become accustomed to sirens and often ignores them.
This invention provides nations, states, provinces, communities, and private companies wishing to provide an emergency notification service, a thorough, timely and cost effective means to notify people within a specific geographic region of potentially dangerous and life threatening situations.
This invention also provides an emergency notification system in which all telephone users in a specific, selected geographic are can be quickly notified of an emergency situation.
In anther aspect, this invention provides governments and other agencies wishing to provide an notification service, a thorough, timely and cost effective means to notify people within a specific geographic region of various situations.
This invention also provides an notification system in which all telephone users in a specific, selected geographic are can be quickly notified of an specific situation.
This invention also provides an alarm/notification device connectable to a telephone line for receiving notification signals from a notification system.
Further, this invention provides an emergency notification system in which an intermediate device, such as a telephone answering machine, connected to a telephone line does not interfere with delivery of an emergency notification to an alarm/notification device.
The present invention relates to a community emergency telephone notification system, device and a method for providing emergency notification to a specific geographic area.
The emergency notification system, device and method according to the present invention provide governments and private institutions with the means of alerting people in homes and/or businesses within a specific geographic region of a dangerous, or potentially dangerous situation. Such dangerous situations may include, for example, a hurricane, a tornado, an escaped convict, flood, fire, earthquake, and nuclear or chemical release.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the emergency notification system alerts people within a specific geographic region of an emergency situation that demands their immediate attention and action. The system of the present invention issues generic broadcast signals along telephone lines in homes and businesses in specific geographic areas. An alarm/notification device receives the signals and is thereby activated to sound an alarm and/or turn on a light, similar to a common household smoke detector. The device may also display a textual message. The emergency notification system is designed to complement national, state, provincial, regional, and community emergency broadcast systems that currently do not have the capability of reaching persons not listening to a radio or watching television at the time of the emergency. The system is designed to be managed by municipal emergency personnel, and to be supported by the local telephone company.
An object of this invention is to turn people""s attention to live media such as radio or TV better suited to following changing conditions. Accordingly, in some aspects, this invention includes advising subscribers of where to obtain more information.
This invention provides users of the emergency broadcast system with a means to test the system by dialing a predefined number which results in the service provider issuing a test or xe2x80x9cAll Clearxe2x80x9d signal specifically and exclusively to the number from which the request was made. This service is used to ensure that a device, the telephone line it is connected to and the system are operational.
This invention provides emergency service personnel with a means to issue a test signal for practice purposes. This test signal is substantially different from a real alarm signal, reducing the number of alarmed citizens (as is typical with other systems).
Additional objectives, features, and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the written description and appended claims hereof, as well as the appended drawings.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.